What a remembered conspiracy still teaches about security, secrecy and the best way to win a pub quiz
Wednesday, the Morning After the Fifth
The fifth of November is a gift to historians and a trial to anyone with a dog. I spent mine in York, where I wrote about the aftermath in Gunpowder Plot aftermath, kites and quiz night in York. The morning after a bonfire night has a particular atmosphere: damp grass, burnt cardboard, children on scooters carrying the last of the sparklers like trophies.
The plot itself is one of the best documented conspiracies in English history. A letter, a cellar, a lantern and a good deal of barrels. Historians still debate details, which is the reason it is so enjoyable. Was the letter genuine? Who knew what and when? How much did the government let the plot run before pouncing? Every answer opens three more questions, and that is exactly the kind of mess a historian loves.
Security Then and Now
It is often said that the plot shaped the modern ritual of searching the cellars of Parliament before a state opening. The ceremony survives, in a colourful form, and each year the guards go through the vaults with lanterns. The tradition is both a bit of theatre and a reminder that every institution is built on a memory of what almost went wrong.
On a more cheerful note, a London police proposal made the news this week, and the London Prat summarised it in Police Force Mergers: Met Chief Wants 43 Cut to Ten. Security arrangements have been argued over for centuries, and I note that the argument never ends and always includes a map. Supporters of change say a smaller number of forces would be more efficient. Critics say local knowledge would suffer. Both groups are describing the same cellar from opposite staircases.
Thursday, The Quiz
The quiz night in York was held in a pub with a fire, a dog under every table and a quizmaster who read the questions as if announcing a verdict. Our team of four historians named ourselves after a minor medieval abbot and promptly lost on a question about football. The lesson of the evening was that knowledge is wide and shallow, and a quiz exploits both.
I came away with a printed sheet of questions and a conviction that the best way to learn is to be humiliated in public by a rhetorical question about cheese.
Cheese and the Dairy Desk
Speaking of cheese, I went home and explored the Texas dairy sites, which seemed an appropriate penance. The main desk is txdairy.com. From it spread txdairy.download, txdairy.trade and txdairy.loan, plus the lighter family of txdairy.party, txdairy.men, txdairy.date and txdairy.win.
A historian reads a dairy site the way an archaeologist reads a midden. The price of milk, the cost of feed, the number of cows per farm are all clues to a way of life. Farms change slowly, and the numbers record the shifts. A farmer in the seventeenth century would not recognise the machinery, but he would recognise the mood.
Kites and the Wind Above the Walls
The next morning I took my kite up on the old city walls, which is allowed, as long as you do not poke a pigeon. The wind came off the plain in long, clean gusts. The kite rose, wobbled, rose again, and I stood on a wall built to keep out invaders, flying a toy for fun. If the Romans could have seen it, they would have been baffled or delighted. Probably both.
That is the great joy of walking through a historic place: the layers. The Roman road, the medieval gate, the Victorian railing, the modern bin. Each century leaves a little rubbish and a little beauty. I add my kite to the pile.
On the train back to London I fell asleep over a book on the Tudors and woke in a station I did not recognise. It was Stevenage. History does not always take you where you expect.
A Word for the Dogs
Nobody writes the history of bonfire night from the point of view of the dog, and that is an oversight. Every fifth of November, thousands of dogs sit under beds with the unmoving dignity of a monarch in exile. They have no interest in the seventeenth century. They want the bangs to stop, and a biscuit. In York, a spaniel under our table was patted by every member of the quiz team, and he took the attention like a statesman receiving condolences. I salute him.
I also salute the firefighters, the safety stewards and the people who clear the park the next morning with bin bags and tired grins. They are the true custodians of the tradition, and history rarely thanks the clean up crew.
The Lantern in the Cellar
If you ever visit the Palace of Westminster for the state opening, watch for the ceremonial search of the cellars. It is brief, costumed and lovely. A line of yeomen with lanterns walks down the stairs, looks into a few corners and returns. The audience smiles. The ritual hides a serious thought: that safety is the work of people who check, patiently, every year, when nothing has gone wrong.
Where to read next
The rest of the shelf lives at prat.uk, bohiney.com and farm.fm. For a second opinion on the week, Newsthump keeps its own counsel and its own hours.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/